Morning:
12°c
Every year I think it will be different, and every year it is the same. I am speaking of the experience of attending the Chelsea Flower Show, the kick-off for the London Season. The world colludes in loving Chelsea.
“Look,” they all say, “Chelsea. How nice. Joanna Lumley is playing with a hose pipe. Helen Mirren is riding a tractor-sized lawn mower. It's wonderful.”
Except it isn't. It's the last summer stand of the toffs in London, who must ritually humiliate the meek classes, for fun, and in revenge for universal suffrage.
I went on Monday. The quiet-voiced classes can attend, but on sufferance — that is, we are not attacked and flayed at the door, although our bags are searched.
But, reader, if you seek enlightenment to the true nature of Chelsea, turn to the gnomes. The gnomes are the big story at Chelsea this year, just behind the garden made entirely of plasticine.
Gnomes are banned at Chelsea. Why, you may ask? “It detracts from the beauty of the gardens,” a spokesman said to me. But this year a woman hid a gnome in her garden, and the toffs exploded. The gnome was duly removed.
Again, why? Because ordinary people have gnomes in their gardens and the toffs don't like it. How disgusting — to have a gnome. How vulgar. How depraved. Take the gnome away! “We don't have bunting either,” added the spokesman, as if that made a difference. Gnomes Out.
So I wandered around the flower show. The snobbery is very hard to define at first because it's subtle — it's a turning-away, a raising of the eyebrows, a shared joke between two people in silly hats who have gardens larger than my postal district.
Then it gets less subtle. Twice — twice! — I was pushed off a lunch table by some posh women wearing floor-length cagoules. They just sat down, and shoved me out. It was D-Day again, but with sandwiches.
“Oh, thank you,” the cagoule women tittered, when I got up, because if I hadn't my organs would have failed, “I hope you don't feel like we squeezed you out.” “You did, and you know you did,” I told them.
Their response was to chew their sandwiches. Their families have probably been chewing in response to peasants' grievances for a thousand years.
“Please don't let us die of dysentery in this stinking slum!” Chew. “Please don't hang my freezing child for stealing a piece of wood!” Chew, chew. “Please don't send my six sons to die in the trenches of Ypres!” Chew, chew, chew, chew, chew.
So I left. I knew I couldn't win. Because I'm only a gnome. So, and this time I mean it, it's my last year at Chelsea. In 2010, I'll be at Gnome Pride instead.
Let's talk about your weight, Oprah
Not even Oprah Winfrey is safe from the vicious talon of fashion.
Oprah was invited to appear on the cover of American Vogue by its editor, Anna Wintour, the model for The Devil Wears Prada, a hyper-fashionable woman who still manages to look like a very small man in drag. (Hours spent in hairdressing salon since birth — 80,609.2; hours spent playing tennis to maintain arms — 80,609.3; hours spent in Chanel buying sunglasses to conceal lack of eyeballs — 80, 609.4).
But Anna had a problem.
Oprah, in fashion terms, is fat. The fact that Oprah is self-made and spends her life making women feel good, while Anna is a scion of a journalism dynasty and spends her life making women feel bad (when she isn't busy concealing the fact she has no eyeballs) is irrelevant.
Just gape at THE FAT hanging off Oprah like a pile of wicked paedophiles carrying illegal nuclear weapons.
So, Anna gently suggested, perhaps Oprah should starve herself, so she would feel more comfortable being on the front of American Vogue.
At this point, Oprah should have tried to eat Anna's leg. But she didn't. She prostrated her talent at the temple of fashion, and lost 20lb, most of it in self-respect.
Anna, if you want me to appear on the front of American Vogue, but I'm just a tiny bit too fat, don't bother calling with a friendly “suggestion” and the loan of a
gold-plated enema tube. I'm having take-out that night.
Forget my virginity, buy my rage
A virgin has auctioned her virginity in order to pay for her degree in computing.
And, if Alina Percea can get £9,000 to have sex with a
45-year-old Italian businessman when her previous sexual experience consists of impersonating Britney Spears in front of a mirror, while using a bottle of Fanta as a microphone, I merely applaud her.
The more interesting point is: what precious thing could I auction to the highest bidder? The virginity is gone, sadly — a packet of bacon Nik-Naks saw it off in 1989 — but I could auction my rage.
For a guide price of £50, I will shout at you. For £75, I will hurl second-hand copies of Mills & Boon novels at you. For £100, I will kick your head in and play with the blood. Email me in confidence at tanyagold2002@yahoo.co.uk.
• Goodbye, Hazel Blears, you have always annoyed me. And now you are annoying Gordon Brown, too.
But, before you are sacked and traipse sadly into the wilderness, there are a few things left you could do to sabotage the glowering leader who has betrayed you.
One — go round the computers at the Department of Communities and Local Government and remove the vowels from the keyboards, so that in correspondence Gordon Brown is spelt Grdn Brwn: Prm Mnstr.
Two — sell a story to the Sunday Mirror about how a secret meeting with Grdn Brwn: Prm Mnstr left you covered from head to toe in dandruff. (Or, rather, dndrff).
Three — go on the OKA: At Home With Design website, from which the Tories have been buying all their immoral furniture, and arrange for No 10 to be completely refurnished in rattan. (Rttn). That should do it. Gd lck, Hzl.
Reader views (1)
What a shame that a ticket for chelsea was wasted on Mr Gold. Indeed, I am amazed that Ms Gold managed to get through the gates with a chip ~ a beam ~ of such size upon her shoulder. We were not so fortunate as to go on the Monday when security was perhaps most important, but yes, our bags were inspected. The security staff were friendly and polite ~ as was everyone else we met. If she is so selfish as to resent sharing a table at an event which she must know is always so crowded that every seating space is at a premium, she should take a picnic, as we did, and sit on the grass. Or is that too demeaning for someone with press privileges?
- S A Jennings, Harrow
